I promise to question everything my leaders tell me. I promise to use my critical faculties. I promise to develop my independence of thought. I promise to educate myself so I can make my own judgments.
Therefore, be islands unto yourselves. Be your own refuge. Have recourse to none else for refuge. Hold fast to the Dharma as a refuge. Resort to no other refuge. Whosoever, either now or after I am gone, shall be islands unto themselves, shall seek no eternal refuge, it is they, among my disciples who shall reach the very topmost height! But they must be keen to progress.
Both the Freudian and the Platonic metaphors emphasize the considerable independence of and tension among the constituent parts of the psyche, a point that characterizes the human condition.
There are few enough people with sufficient independence to see the weaknesses and follies of their contemporaries and remain themselves untouched by them.
The stronger becomes master of the weaker, in so far as the latter cannot assert its degree of independence here there is no mercy, no forbearance, even less a respect for "laws.